Center Stage has received the rights to produce August Wilson's Tony Award-nominated play "Seven Guitars" and has scheduled performances from April 25 to June 1 in the Pearlstone Theater.The nonprofit professional theater also has finalized plans to present Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" as part of the 1996-1997 season. The play will run Jan. 31 through March 9.Center Stage's six-play season opens Sept. 27 with Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo."A part of historyYou and your family have a chance to become part of a historic Smithsonian exhibit, "The American Family," sponsored by Discover card to celebrate the American family and the Smithsonian Institution's 150th birthday.

The theater scene in Washington during this frigid winter has been pretty hot. The latest example is "Mother Courage and Her Children," the classic Bertolt Brecht play in a potent revival at Arena Stage starring Kathleen Turner. Director Molly Smith, who guides this atmospheric, in-the-round production with a sure hand, has said she wanted to remind people of the "Her Children" in the title so that Brecht's searing anti-war, anti-hypocrisy sentiments are not the only take-homes. That goal has been realized, thanks to Turner's rich portrayal.

The theater scene in Washington during this frigid winter has been pretty hot. The latest example is "Mother Courage and Her Children," the classic Bertolt Brecht play in a potent revival at Arena Stage starring Kathleen Turner. Director Molly Smith, who guides this atmospheric, in-the-round production with a sure hand, has said she wanted to remind people of the "Her Children" in the title so that Brecht's searing anti-war, anti-hypocrisy sentiments are not the only take-homes. That goal has been realized, thanks to Turner's rich portrayal.

Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts Clive James W.W. Norton / 876 pages / $35 In Cultural Amnesia, the prodigious critic Clive James succumbs to a mighty ambition: In 100-plus alphabetically arranged essays, he pays homage to the vast Western humanist enterprise (writing, filmmaking, music, philosophy, theater), defending it from myriad enemies. I don't fault his intelligence or erudition: This Australian omnivore has read, traveled and thought more than perhaps any critic alive.

Title: "Bertolt Brecht Journals, 1934-1955"Editor: John Willett; translated from the German by Hugh RorrisonPublisher: Routledge0$ Length, price: 556 pages, $39.95Bertolt Brecht was ostensibly a Marxist playwright, but that is a bit like saying that George Bernard Shaw was a vegetarian playwright. Brecht, like Shaw, in fact, juggled ideas like flaming torches while trying, less successfully than Shaw, to keep his distance from the heat. In his theater the ideas are primarily characters; their role is far more dramatic than intellectual.

THE GERMAN playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) aimed to make what he called "Epic Theater" -- drama as a tool of social change. His goal was to direct audiences away from empathy with his characters and toward an intellectual understanding of the play's theme, which in the playwright's work almost always dealt with the moral and political dilemmas of a mass society in which individuals are isolated and helpless.So there is irony in Theater Hopkins' production of Brecht's youthful masterpiece, "The Threepenny Opera," which will run for five weekends starting Oct. 18."

Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts Clive James W.W. Norton / 876 pages / $35 In Cultural Amnesia, the prodigious critic Clive James succumbs to a mighty ambition: In 100-plus alphabetically arranged essays, he pays homage to the vast Western humanist enterprise (writing, filmmaking, music, philosophy, theater), defending it from myriad enemies. I don't fault his intelligence or erudition: This Australian omnivore has read, traveled and thought more than perhaps any critic alive.

A Brecht satire Hungarian director Eniko Eszenyi makes her American debut directing Bertolt Brecht's 1926 political satire, A Man's a Man, which opens at Washington's Arena Stage tonight. The early Brecht play focuses on a dock worker's transformation into a human fighting machine. Arena's artistic director, Molly Smith, first saw Eszenyi's work three years ago on a trip to Hungary under the auspices of the Center for International Theatre Development, which is headed by Philip Arnoult (founder of Baltimore's Theatre Project)

Da da kamera's In On It is like a set of Russian dolls: There's a story within a story within a story. In this case, a dying man makes his final plans, two gay lovers work through their relationship and two men put together a play. If that sounds elliptical, it is, but it's not inaccessible. Toronto playwright Daniel MacIvor has been described by a critic as "the Bertolt Brecht of his generation" and In On It has received raves in such theater-savvy cities as London, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Toronto and Edinburgh, Scotland.

It may be its diamond jubilee, but Theatre Hopkins is opening its 75th anniversary season tomorrow with pennies -- Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera," to be exact.The musical version of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera," "The Threepenny Opera" was first produced by Theatre Hopkins in 1967, when it was staged by Edward Golden, who spent four years at the helm of the Homewood theater after serving as the first artistic director of Center Stage. Golden, now a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is expected to be in the opening-night audience.

THE GERMAN playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) aimed to make what he called "Epic Theater" -- drama as a tool of social change. His goal was to direct audiences away from empathy with his characters and toward an intellectual understanding of the play's theme, which in the playwright's work almost always dealt with the moral and political dilemmas of a mass society in which individuals are isolated and helpless.So there is irony in Theater Hopkins' production of Brecht's youthful masterpiece, "The Threepenny Opera," which will run for five weekends starting Oct. 18."

Center Stage has received the rights to produce August Wilson's Tony Award-nominated play "Seven Guitars" and has scheduled performances from April 25 to June 1 in the Pearlstone Theater.The nonprofit professional theater also has finalized plans to present Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" as part of the 1996-1997 season. The play will run Jan. 31 through March 9.Center Stage's six-play season opens Sept. 27 with Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo."A part of historyYou and your family have a chance to become part of a historic Smithsonian exhibit, "The American Family," sponsored by Discover card to celebrate the American family and the Smithsonian Institution's 150th birthday.

Title: "Bertolt Brecht Journals, 1934-1955"Editor: John Willett; translated from the German by Hugh RorrisonPublisher: Routledge0$ Length, price: 556 pages, $39.95Bertolt Brecht was ostensibly a Marxist playwright, but that is a bit like saying that George Bernard Shaw was a vegetarian playwright. Brecht, like Shaw, in fact, juggled ideas like flaming torches while trying, less successfully than Shaw, to keep his distance from the heat. In his theater the ideas are primarily characters; their role is far more dramatic than intellectual.

'Emerald City' opens Friday at Theatre Hopkins"Emerald City" -- a semiautobiographical play by David Williamson, author of the screenplays of "Gallipoli" and "The Year of Living Dangerously" -- opens a five-weekend run at Theatre Hopkins on Friday.Harry B. Turner plays an Australian screenwriter who strives to remain true to his artistic vision. Curtain times are Friday and Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. with matinees Sundays at 2:15 p.m. Tickets are $7.50 and $10. Theatre Hopkins performs in the Merrick Barn on the Johns Hopkins University campus.

The theater department of the University of Maryland Baltimore County will perform "The Tutor" next month at the American College Theatre Festival at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y.Sam McCready directs the play, written by Jakob Lenz and adapted by Bertolt Brecht.At the festival, a panel of judges will select productions for the national festival held annually at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Since 1975, four UMBC productions have been chosen for the festival.In addition, UMBC students Bonnie Webster, John Hansen and James Brown-Orleans have been chosen to compete for the ZTC Irene Ryan Acting Award, which is part of the festival.